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New hope for Matisse with surgery

By JOLENE WILLIAMS

4:04 PM Thursday Jul 28, 2011

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Matisse Reid and her family have spent 10 years in and out of hospitals and today will come full circle when she undergoes a surgery procedure doctors hoped would solve her chronic health problems as a newborn.
Matisse's mother Jodee was positive the surgery would go well.
"This time I believe we will see nothing but improvement in my girl," she said. "Even so, I am still really nervous. It is hard to put aside years of hope to believe that we are finally here - full circle - right where we should have been a decade ago."
Matisse was born with a rare chronic disease and it was thought a colostomy - a procedure that provided an alternative digestive tract - would correct the health problems.
But Matisse was misdiagnosed and back in hospital at six weeks old for surgery, this time for a procedure that redirected the small intestine to an exterior opening. Today's surgery would close that opening.
Matisse had been unable to eat without doubling over in pain until this year after recovering from a double organ transplant in December. Though she would have to live with the risk of her body rejecting the new organs, the transplants gave her and her family hope that she would one day live a life without pain, tests and constant hospital visits.
Mrs Reid said it was an anxious wait for the family to see if the colostomy would work.
"The fact that most thought she would not live to see her first birthday is a testament to her strong will and determination and what an amazing kid she is," she said. "Not only has she lived - she has survived years of horrific pain and more hospitalisation than I can remember."